Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Daddy's Note

Today I had Audra send Daddy an e-mail at work. Here is what she wrote:

hhfjhgjhjkjhjkljkhkjhljhkjkhjjkjhljnjnlykljy.lkh

I asked her what it said, and this is what she said it said (in her exact words): "I got a new toy and I'm doing well. Don't you miss me, daddy? I love you very much. I hope you will be a great time seeing me tomorrow. I know that you love me so much. I know that I wish I could play your game and I love you and I hope that you have a great time. OK? I love to see you Sunday and I'm not going to miss you more. I wish I can be a girl again at your game."

She actually went on and on for about another 10 minutes, but I stopped typing.

(The game she is talking about is Lego Star Wars- she and Daddy play that game and Audra LOVES it and asks to play it with him constantly. She always likes to be the girl)

A Day At The Beach

Well, it didn't get into the 90's, or even the 70's, but we still had a great time at the 
beach with some awesome friends!

I love beach pictures- especially the kiddos in contrast to the vast ocean. Here is Audra dipping 
her toes in the water. She insisted it wasn't cold, but it really was a cold day.

 That is a smile, folks!
 I told you it was cold!




Here's the best picture I could get of all four kiddos:
One of the great blessings of my life has been wonderful friends. I have always had amazing friends, and friends who I have had for decades who I am still close to. I am hoping our kids will get
married so we can be family as well! Time will tell...

Monday, July 11, 2011

The Check-Ups

Today was Audra's 4 year-old check up and Claire's 2-year-old check up.

Here are Audra's Stats:
Weight: 36 lb (54%)
Height: 42" (86%)

BMI: 18.8% (85% is considered overweight, so she is doing pretty well!)

Claire's Stats:
Weight: 24 lb (15%)
Height: 34" (42%)

The other day I asked Claire what her name was. She said, "Audra 2." I do not know where she got that from! We have NEVER called her that- I am a middle child, I don't want her having the same complexes I had!

As we were in the car driving to the doctors, Audra asked if she and Claire would have to get shots. I told her I thought Claire would have to get one, but that she wouldn't. So she said, "Claire, you are going to have to get a shot and you are going to cry." I told her not to tell Claire that she would cry and Audra said, "I promise, she will cry!"

The biggest surprise was that the doctor discovered that Claire has a double ear-infection, and a really bad one at that. She said she can't believe that Claire is even able to sleep with it. Well, I guess when you are always fussy, then when you are fussy for a reason nobody knows! (Actually, she hasn't been fussy at all the last few days- I would have never known there was anything wrong)

Claire is starting to tattle on Audra. The other day she went up to Ben and said, "Audra take stroller!" We know this is just the beginning of the sibling rivalries.

Speaking of rivalries, Audra always wants to wear Claire's clothes. It is rather frustrating- you all know Audra has plenty of her own clothes and she doesn't need Claire's clothes. But, she always wants what isn't hers. Sound familiar, anyone?

Let's see...most everything about the girls you already know from this blog- there isn't much else to say. I did want to document their stats, however. So, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of my two favorite girls:


Saturday, July 9, 2011

Claire's Birthday

We have been contemplating for awhile what to do for Claire's Birthday, and this morning we finally decided to go to the Renaissance Festival. It was a great decision, even though the traffic was horrible. We really had a fantastic time.
 Here we are eating about the worst food in the world. Well, at least here is Claire sitting at the table where we ate the worst food in the world. You are (of course) not allowed to bring in your own food- which is totally fine, we realize they are in the market to make money. But, the food was quite horrible. In fact, Audra refused to eat hers, even when offered pop as a reward for eating it (just kidding, she would eat it, but ONLY if she got a sip of pop after every bite).
 The king and queens' parade

 Audra LOVED the king and queen (anybody surprised?)
 These next few pictures were in the kids play area which was great. This was a butterfly ride which was manually pushed by two ladies. Audra loved it.

 This was the best picture I could take of Ben and the girls. Audra kept turning around saying "NO!", Claire refused to look at all, and Ben just wanted me to stop trying.
 Here's the best family picture. Sometimes, you just have to laugh and move on:
 This is my second favorite picture of the day:
 We caved and bought Audra a headpiece. Sometimes, I really think we spoil our children, but then how could we resist something that we knew would make her so happy?
 After we came home (completely exhausted) we had Grandma and Grandpa over for dinner, cake, and presents. They were generous and brought the DQ ice-cream, our favorite!
 Here we are singing to Claire

 She couldn't blow out the candles by herself, but luckily Audra was very willing to help out:

 Sisterly love right before opening presents:
 And, my absolute favorite picture of the day:
Do you notice what Claire has on her face? A SMILE!!! I finally got it!!!!! I don't care that Audra's face is completely squashed, I was finally able to capture a smile! Priceless!!!

What else was priceless, that I wasn't able to get a good picture of, was Claire and Audra playing with one of Claire's Birthday gifts. Ben and I got Claire a Dora Castle (OK, it was a hand me down from a friend, but then we bought her some dolls to go with it- that was the gift from Audra). These girls played with it for over an hour, until it was time for bed, then went to bed crying because they wanted to keep playing. In fact, Audra kept opening her bedroom door because she had to keep peeking at the castle, so we had to take it downstairs.

It was so cute watching them play. Claire was practically hyperventilating as she moved the dolls from one room to another. There was a horse and carriage that they each took turns taking around the house. It was so cute- they have never been more excited for anything in their short lives!!! It was a great day, capped off with a great Birthday party!!!

Happy Birthday, Claire!!!

The Princess and the Mermaid

The other day I scored an awesome bag of dress-up clothes. We have a Bargain Blast, which is basically a Craigslist for our area, and somebody posted a free bag of dress-up clothes that they had sitting on their porch. This was at 7:30 AM. I immediately e-mailed back and said I wanted them. After 10 minutes, I hadn't heard back so I called and left a message. After 10 minutes I hadn't heard back, so I decided to drive over to this lady's house. The clothes were still there, but nobody answered the door, so I took the clothes and called and left another message, something to the effect of "I know I am now bordering on stalking, but I came over and took the clothes and if you already promised them to somebody else, I will bag them up and bring them right back."

About 2 hours later she called and said, "I actually had promised them to somebody else, but you are incredibly passionate about these clothes, so please keep them." (I did call this other person who she had promised them to and offered to split the bag, but she never called me back)

These clothes are AWESOME!!! They all have zippers, not just Velcro, and they are very well made. There are all the princess dresses, a bunny and butterfly costume, lots of other Halloween costumes, and there was even a doll and a My Little Pony thrown in. Audra has been in dress-up heaven (have I mentioned how much she likes clothes and dress-up?), and Claire is even getting in on the fun. What a great blessing these clothes are!!!! Sometimes it pays to be just a little crazy!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Proud To Be An American!

Happy Belated 4th of July everyone!!!

We celebrated the day by heading to our city center where they were putting on several events. It was incredibly HOT, but other than that we had a fantastic time.

Here we are on the hayride:

 The barrel train:


 Audra got to ride a donkey:


 Barrel train take 2 (we were surprised that Claire would actually stay seated, so we took advantage. There were bouncy houses as well, but both times we put Claire in she started screaming and had to immediately be taken out, so that was a waste of 2 bucks- oh, well):
 

















 And what would the 4th of July be without a Mediterranean dinner? Yes, we should have had a BBQ, but we got lazy. Being lazy might be even more American than a BBQ, right?
 Unfortunately, we didn't stay for the fireworks. I wanted to give it a shot and see how the girls did, but Ben didn't want to risk the tired tantrums. We haven't seen a fireworks show since 2006, so maybe next year will be our year.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Remember My Rants?

Remember when I complained about not being able to do crafts for Relief Society activities? Well, last Saturday we did this:

Isn't that awesome? It's a 12 x12 inch plaque and cost about $18 to make. You could choose from several different temples (this is the Denver Temple). It was a huge hit as well- a lot of people signed up to do them, so we were all really happy with that!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Too Cute Not To Share

I said, "Claire, we're going for a walk. Go get your socks."

She said, "OK!" and ran upstairs as fast as she could. 20 seconds later she ran back out, then climbed down two stairs, stopped and put her hands on her hips and stuck her right foot out with pointed toes and said, "I'm ready!"

I tried to get her to recreate her look with her beautiful accessories she chose all herself:
Not a great picture, I know, but trying to get a picture of Claire is like trying to ride a hippopotamus- pretty impossible. Hopefully, however, you get the gist! 

Museum

We went to the Littleton Museum again, and it was HOT but a lot of fun. And, of course, there were great photo-ops!

They went into the old school house, and there was somebody there role playing as the teacher. It was really neat. She had the students pretend to be real students from 1865. She even made the gentlemen (boys) take off their hats. But the girls got to keep theirs on. Of course, I had to put the pictures in black and white.


 Here they are with their good friend Ava. We sure love her!!! She's about the only girl Claire's age. Notice that huge smile on Claire's face?!? I finally captured it!
 But then, not 30 seconds later, this is what she was doing:
Poor Ava didn't know what to do while Claire tantrumed. Claire has been doing SO MUCH better, but today she wanted me to carry her the entire time. I knew I had to nip that in the bud and she needed to learn that she has her own two feet and she can walk on her own. So she tantrumed. And tantrumed. But, eventually she would walk while I held her two hands above her head- you know, where she kind of drags her feet while I half carry her? Then she would put all her weight on her feet, but still insisted I hold her hands. I don't know if she learned her lesson, but at least my arms didn't get too terribly worn out.

Afterwards we had a picnic lunch at the park nearby. A homeless man came up to us and said, "I don't know if I should tell you this or not, but right here is where I buried my wife." My friend Kathy calmly said, "I hope legally." I thought it was the perfect response.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The North Pole

I have been wanting to do some fun vacation things this summer. Originally, I wanted to go to Utah and Idaho to visit family. Ben refused- he hates that drive, so we decided against it. Instead, we decided to do some day trips and go and do some fun things as a family.
So, instead of UT we went to the North Pole! North Pole, CO that is. It is a really fun amusement park geared just for little kids. We had a great time. We spent 5 1/2 hours at the park, and Claire was literally falling asleep on my shoulder as we left, but the girls still wanted to stay and have even more fun. It was a great day!

They were a little scared of Santa and Snow White. Oh, well.


 Audra loved driving the car. I remember a ride like this at Lagoon in UT- I used to love that as well!
 Love this picture!
 Claire did not want to go on any rides at first. Eventually we figured out she didn't want to be buckled. She finally went on this ride, but only for about 13 seconds. The operator had to turn off the ride and let her off.


On the train.
 Is that a smile?!?
 For much of the time, especially at the beginning, Claire just wanted me to hold her. 
Eventually she started to warm up and walk on her own. My arms were grateful.
 Attempted family picture.
 This was just before the magic show, which the girls loved. 
Claire really wanted to be on stage, so she went down and then started screaming. Nice.
 The biggest hit of the day by far was the Merry-Go-Round. We went on that at least 5 times, maybe more.


 They got to feed reindeer.
 Not sure how I feel about this ride...you aim at your friends to shoot them. 
This ride was definitely built in the 50's.